Tag: Julian Assange

Amal Clooney will represent 14 Irish prisoners who endured Britain’s version of Guantanamo in a case that, according to researcher Lauretta Farrell, has become “the benchmark by which other countries measure their ‘enhanced interrogation programs.’ ”

In a conversation with “Imaginary Lines” host Chris Spannos, WikiLeaks founder and Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange discussed his new book, “When Google Met WikiLeaks,” which is based on a conversation Assange had with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

The WikiLeaks founder told journalists at a news conference Monday that he can confirm he will leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London after two years refuge there, though he stated that his departure was “probably not” due to reasons “the Murdoch press” and others have surmised.

“Democracy Now!” speaks to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has lived as a political prisoner for more than two years, in what the show says is the first time a U.S. news program has entered his place of refuge.

After spending over a year in a federal correctional institution, “Weev” Auernheimer’s conviction has been vacated by an appeals court. The U.S. government may try him again and critics of his prosecution hope Auernheimer’s plight will underscore the need to put an end to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

When institutions lend their support to the powerless, as the Pulitzer committee did this week to whistle-blowers and their newspapers, the battle is no longer merely between the weak and its oppressors.

“What splendid courage!” Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer said upon hearing the announcement. “By recognizing the astounding threat posed by the NSA to the basic freedoms our government is sworn to observe, the award effectively honors Edward Snowden and, through his example, other brave whistle-blowers.”

Julian Assange’s attorney comments on documents reported about on Glenn Greenwald’s new investigative site showing that U.S. officials sought to get governments worldwide to agree to prosecute Assange, that the British intelligence agency has a program to identify computers used to search for the whistle-blowing publisher WikiLeaks, and more.

What do Edward Snowden, the former Yugoslavia, Alexander Berkman and the logistical and legislative mess known as Obamacare have to do with one another? Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges connects these figures and concepts in conversation with The Real News Network’s Paul Jay.

Mairead Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work in Northern Ireland, has visited Julian Assange and written a condemnation of his asylum—which is effectively a house arrest—for the “crime of being a journalist who told the truth.”

Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks Party made a Senate bid in September for a spot representing Victoria, Western Australia. Now, thanks to some missing ballots being found, the party has another opportunity to take part in the elections, and this time Assange himself will head the party ticket.

Julian Assange has taken strong objection to “The Fifth Estate,” Hollywood’s take on WikiLeaks’ adventures in journalism. In a new interview, the director of the film, Bill Condon, says the WikiLeaks publisher “just flat-out makes things up.”

In an age of unprecedented antagonism toward the press, one newspaper headquartered in the heart of a former empire is making a spirited thrashing of the image and ambitions of some of the world’s proudest elites.

Julian Assange has been critical of the upcoming dramatization of his work, “The Fifth Estate,” since he read an early draft of the script. Now, as the movie is set to open, he cuts it to ribbons once again.

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Julian Assange’s attorney, Michael Ratner, has a front seat to history. Also: Is this the golden age of the black quarterback? And a feminist explains why women can love Eminem. Plus: Robert Scheer on the pope.

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Julian Assange’s attorney, Michael Ratner, has a front seat to history. Also: Is this the golden age of the black quarterback? And a feminist explains why women can love Eminem. Plus: Robert Scheer on the pope.

After reading Benedict Cumberbatch’s full, unedited remarks on the punishment of Chelsea Manning and government destruction of privacy, published Monday at The Guardian, I believe his meanings as originally reported remain intact.

Truthdig’s Robert Scheer sat down with Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg recently to compare Ellsberg’s story, and the U.S. government’s handling of his case, with those of Edward Snowdon and Bradley Manning. According to Ellsberg, “whistle-blower” may now carry a more positive charge than it did when he earned the title, but the outcome looks far bleaker for those two who also defied authorities to serve their country.

The soldier’s 35-year sentence means the end of the rule of law. It terminates the ability of the press and the public to hold power accountable. And it presages the rise of a government under which the just will become criminals.

Many supporters of Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks were unhappy with Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney’s “We Steal Secrets,” but in a new interview with David Sirota, the director expresses support for the Army private as well as for website founder Julian Assange.

“For three years Bradley Manning and Julian Assange were accused of murder,” writes Matt Sledge at The Huffington Post. “Members of Congress and the administration said their WikiLeaks document dump endangered U.S. interests—and lives.”

The policeman who doused a group of protesters sitting peacefully (and later became the subject of myriads of memes), is claiming the event caused him psychological damage; Alex Gibney’s documentary about WikiLeaks is chock-full of propaganda meant to discredit Julian Assange; meanwhile, divers in Hawaii cleaned the ocean by hand and filled an 18-wheeler with human debris. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock”) plays Julian Assange in DreamWorks and Participant Media’s upcoming film based on the book by WikiLeaks ship-jumper Daniel Domscheit-Berg and Luke Harding of The Guardian.

“Every day, hundreds of millions of messages from the entire Latin American continent are devoured by US spy agencies, and stored forever in warehouses the size of small cities,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange writes in The Guardian on Tuesday. “The geographical facts about the infrastructure of the internet therefore have consequences for the independence and sovereignty of Latin America.”

Scientists are trying to construct military members who can fight without fatigue and thus be more efficient killing machines; a lot of Chinese students who hope to pursue higher education in the U.S. don’t speak enough English to do so; meanwhile, an organization named VIDA was formed to create awareness about gender bias in the literary world and it’s succeeding in making some publishers and reviewers uncomfortable. These discoveries and more after the jump.

One cyberactivist’s federal case wrapped up this week, and another’s is set to begin. While these two young men, Jeremy Hammond and Bradley Manning, are the two who were charged, it is the growing menace of government and corporate secrecy that should be on trial.

Julian Assange told “Democracy Now!” on Wednesday that the Pentagon and the Obama administration are going after “bright young men, determined, courageous and moral,” like Jeremy Hammond, who pleaded guilty this week to hacking private intelligence firm Stratfor, the FBI and other institutions.

The Obama administration has passed or made use of a host of laws to infringe our civil liberties, obliterate the balance of power, legitimize a military dictatorship, and control the dissemination of truth in the name of protecting its “secrets.” Soon we will have lost our freedom, not to some foreign nation that hates it, but to our own devices.

The WikiLeaks founder revealed internal conversations among employees of Britain’s intelligence agency in which agents apparently speculate that he is the target of a “fit-up” by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape charges.

“We are now in the last moments of an effort to, in essence, effectively extinguish press freedom,” the Truthdig columnist told “Democracy Now!” in a conversation Wednesday about revelations of the Justice Department’s seizure of work, home and cellphone records of up to 100 reporters and editors at The Associated Press.

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: With marijuana, alone, the administration has adopted multiple, contrary positions. Also: The past and future FCC, why we don’t execute terrorists, and baby books for kids.